Is the global humanitarian system collapsing?

The US foreign aid freeze in 2025 sowed chaos and confusion among humanitarian organizations operating around the world. Chaos and confusion is not something you want when you're providing life-saving services under already extremely difficult circumstances. People working for these organizations suddenly had to contemplate the unthinkable, What did it mean to stop work immediately? What would happen to the people they served? The story didn't end there. Neither did the chaos and confusion. In the world of humanitarian relief, US government funding cuts and the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development were the bellwether of a broader crisis. The state of the humanitarian system report came out last week. It's grim. Between 2022 and 2025, international humanitarian assistance fell by about 30%. 13 of the world's 20 largest humanitarian donors cut funding in 2025. And only one third of people who are assessed to be in need of assistance actually received it. Simply put, The system that was created to help people forcibly displaced by conflict and disaster is breaking. Jocelyn Wyatt leads Alight, a global humanitarian organization based in Minnesota. She and her team dealt with the immediate impacts of the US aid cuts firsthand. Her organization has taken a huge hit. Wyatt's background is in human-centered design. She brings creativity and a commitment to listening to what people actually want and need to solving really difficult problems. There are no easy solutions to this one. Organizations working within a failing system or trying to are stuck between impossible choices. The question is how to get unstuck. And it's a question of life and death. Here's Jocelyn Wyatt. Jocelyn Wyatt, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks so much. Great to be here.

It's great to have you. So Alight is a global humanitarian organization that was founded, I think, in the 1970s as with a different name, the American Refugee Committee. For those who aren't familiar with your organization, can you just share sort of the broad overview of the kinds of programs and services you provide?

Of course. Yeah. So we're about a 50 year old organization, as you mentioned, started off as American Refugee Committee. We have always focused on forcibly displaced people and refugees around the world. We have worked across continents, currently work in about a dozen countries around the world. And we provide services and support to forcibly displaced people, so internally displaced people and refugees, folks that have been displaced due to conflict or natural disasters or climate or those that have faced severe economic or social exclusion issues. And we do a range of things from sort of emergency support, working with people in those immediate moments, those first moments of displacement, things like providing access to nutrition or health services, water and sanitation, shelter. and then really accompanying them on their journey through that period of displacement till they ultimately are able to find and build their new homes and communities and be settled in a new place. And so the context in which we work is oftentimes within the refugee camps or settlements for